If you’re new here, my Client Stories blog is a quarterly ongoing series on sharing my talented photography client’s stories online. I have a regular chat with my loveliest clients and feature their business story along with the photos from our shoot together.
June’s Client Story features The Readymoney Beach Shop who I’ve worked with for a few lifestyle shoots now, capturing owner, Victoria’s, shop and products along the way.
Together we’ve built a collection of lifestyle imagery to reflect her shop offerings and showcase their beautiful spot on Readymoney Beach in Fowey in the best light possible. I’ve had a good chat with Victoria, founder of Readymoney Beach Shop, and asked her to tell me little more about how her shop started and a highlight in her business journey so far.
Hi Victoria, when and why did you decide to start your incredible business?
Hi Amy! Readymoney Beach Shop started almost by accident. In the summer of 2016 I put together a group of local people together to run a temporary pop-up stall at Readymoney Cove in Fowey, Cornwall. From a wallpapering table with a camping stove, our group of volunteers sold hot and cold drinks and cakes over the summer holidays to raise funds to buy new Christmas lights for the town.
The pop up was hugely popular and following the permanent closure of the beach toilets by Cornwall Council in late 2016 coinciding with the ice-cream van’s licence coming up for renewal, I was asked if I would like to submit a tender to run a business on the site. With absolutely no background in either catering or hospitality or retail (I had been a personal injury solicitor prior to relocating to Cornwall in February 2015) I said said “yes but only if you’ll rent me the toilet block” and the rest is history. The business has grown from strength to strength since and really has been quite the journey.
How many local products do you stock in the shop?
Gosh, that’s hard to quantify as we have such a huge range of products in the shop. I spend a lot of time, usually on social media, researching new potential suppliers and I particularly love working with small local makers. My preference is always for Cornwall based gifts: there are so many talented and creative people here. I do also stock quite a few makers from across the border into Devon and love the fact that the vast majority (about 78% at last count) of my suppliers are female founded businesses.
Tell us more about your reusable cup scheme.
Most of my customers drink their hot drinks on the beach and very early on I became aware of how much waste this was creating in terms of single use cups. Back in 2019 I took the bold step of bringing in a range of reusable cups (themselves made from 100% recycled plastic) to replace those single use cups as standard. Anyone who wanted a takeaway cup would have to pay a 25p charge for one.
This was a scary step to take but has been an overwhelmingly popular policy with our customers who love drinking from a “proper cup with a handle”. Yes, there’s a lot more washing up but that’s far more manageable than bin bags full of cups (there are no industrial composting facilities here in Cornwall for biodegradable cups).
I did make some mistakes along the way: the first batch of cups had the shop name on and all vanished as souvenirs very quickly. One batch I accidentally ordered in white instead of dark grey and they became tea stained very quickly but we’ve now hit on a dark grey rather utilitarian version which seems to work a treat. I calculated that we save approaching 30,000 single use cups from the bin each year and that’s a statistic the team and I are very proud of.
What do you love most about running Readymoney Beach Shop?
No one day is ever the same. Like many small business owners, I wear many many hats: CEO; chief buyer; secretary; accounts manager; shipping department; stock controller; marketing manager; customer service rep; maintenance manager; problem solver! I think my favourite aspect though is finding lovely new products, whether tasty treats to eat, gorgeous gift ideas or products to make the most of your day at the beach and sharing them with my loyal customer base.
What does a typical day look like for you or the team?
I swear my business operates mainly via lists! We have laminated opening and closing checklists for the team to work through and in-between it’s scooping, brewing, serving, chatting, restocking, washing up, cleaning and repeat!
The first thing I do each morning is review the to do list I keep on my phone and prioritise what needs doing first. Tasks for this week include attending a trade show, meetings with two potential new suppliers, paying invoices, ordering more local walks books, cute new mini greetings cards and a restock of some gorgeous local cards, restocking the gift shelves, onboarding a new staff member, a Zoom call with my stock management project mentor, filling in spreadsheets, doing some analysis of last year’s sales and drilling some hooks into a display unit, and that’s just some of this week!
Where’s your favourite spot or beach in Fowey?
Readymoney Cove has been a family favourite for years. We holidayed in Fowey prior to moving here, spent our honeymoon here and have photos of all our children on the beach as babies. I love Readymoney most on a sunny late spring day when the sea is turquoise and it’s not too busy. I also really like the walk up to St Catherine’s Castle and onto Alldays Fields where you can sit on a bench looking out to sea and just enjoying the vast expanse of blue, it’s very grounding.
What’s been a highlight in your business journey so far?
Email marketing has been an absolute game changer for my business. About two years ago I started my weekly “Notes from Readymoney Cove” emails, they go out every Sunday morning at 7am and have been a really good way of connecting with my customers and building community around a special place which means so much to so many people. I get so many responses each week and people are so kind and supportive. The link to subscribe is here if you’d like to join our special little gang (you get 10% off online when you sign up).
What does the next year hold for Readymoney Beach Shop?
We kicked off 2025 with a fresh new look for the shop, replacing our white walls with a gorgeous soft green and terracotta colour scheme and some new fittings to improve our display. Over the last year I’ve been learning to think much more seasonally from a retail perspective and even through we don’t have a shop window to dress, I’m enjoying planning our seasonal displays and buying in new stock to showcase. The shop feels fresh and exciting again and I can’t wait to see how it involve over the year.
You can find Readymoney Beach Cove on their Instagram and shop their products and look at their Readymoney Beach web cam from their website.
